The news of the Android Market reaching the milestone of 100,000 apps may have been great news for Android – but perhaps it came a bit too soon.

Those numbers come from AndroLib, but Google has announced the official numbers, with the Android Market having just over 70,000 apps. So, why the big difference in numbers? Google’s numbers come only from the official Android Market, the one pre-loaded on just about every Android phone, and the one you are probably most familiar with.

But AndroLib calculates its own numbers quite differently. In addition to counting several additional markets, AndroLib counts the number of apps that have appeared in the Market, and does not account for deleted apps; oftentimes, this can lead to multiple duplicated apps in their count. The last time this was buzzing around the web, we reached out to AndroLib for clarification:

It is rarely mentioned but Androlib covers over 10 markets and therefore also lists applications unfound in other sites. Just try to find this random russian app on the other sites

Honestly, we cannot guarantee we have everything but we think we are doing a pretty good job at it. Our number is high as some applications might have been taken out of the market. We count everything that has ever been added to the market. Upates do not count towards the overall number obviously.

On the rating front, nothing is added manually. All the ratings are the phone ratings.

So, while the Android platform is growing at an incredible rate, we still have some time before the official Market reaches the 100,000 mark.